Joe Knippenberg defends Romney's speech against critics who object to his apparent exclusion of nonbelievers. David Neff offers an evangelical perspective on the speech.
Friday, December 14, 2007
More on Romney
Cultural Selection
William Saletan explains why an emerging theory of evolution suggests that today's driving force of natural selection is culture.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Constitutional Protestantism and Constitutional Catholicism
Almost 20 years ago now Sandy Levinson published a book, Constitutional Faith, in which he makes the analogical move mentioned by Tom Berg in a recent post by exploring "Catholic" and "Protestant" interpretations of the constitution.
Why We Care About the Founders
In response to Chris Eberle, we -- and not just we lawyers -- talk and argue about the founders for a couple of reasons. (This post is mostly description, and only in part justification.) First, in the legal realm, the originalist theory of interpretation holds that the Constitution, like other legal documents, should be interpreted now according to the meaning it had at the time of its adoption, either for those who enacted/ratified it or for the general public (as to whom the founders' statements are still evidence). The argument is that the authoritative legal act took place at that time and so its meaning should be set as of then, combined with an argument (championed e.g. by Justice Scalia) that alternative inquiries (like "what should be the role of religion in public life today?") are far more disputed and uncertain than asking "What led the founding generation to coalesce behind certain constitutional enactments?" Originalism can be criticized of course, and it's by no means the exclusive view, but it's significant enough -- and there's enough agreement in legal culture that original meaning is a significant factor in interpretation -- to warrant having arguments over the Founders' views.
Second, not only judges and lawyers but a lot of Americans seem to care about the Founders' views. Because our nation is built less than others on geographic and ethnic ties and more on a sense of a shared project, the people who started that project -- who are seen as its source, or closer to its source, of inspiration -- have an extra claim on attention. In contrast to Prof. Eberle, I see this attitude as having "Protestant" overtones, in that Americans look back to the original documents and the generation that produced them -- much as evangelical Protestants look back to the scriptures and the first-century church -- more than they emphasize an evolving tradition. (I just saw Steve Smith's comments making the same point.) Of course you can question the analogy between the Christian relevatory generation and the American founding, but for "a nation with the soul of a church" the analogical move isn't that surprising. Even if the analogy is bad, the sense that our national project starts from some founding principles, to which that generation was closest, is very understandable.
Tom
Steve Smith's response to Chris Eberle
A few days ago, Chris Eberle asked:
. . . Even if we assume, as is surely not the case, that there was some one position, even broadly construed, that the founders took with respect to the proper public role of religion, of what normative significance is that fact? After all, suppose that we agree that, as Prof. Stone says, "the Founders were not anti-religion. They understood that religion could help nurture the public morality necessary to a self-governing society. But they also understood that religion was fundamentally a private and personal matter that had no place in the political life of a nation dedicated to the separation of church and state." Why should that matter to me any more than their belief in Newtonian physics? . . .
In response, Steve Smith writes:
(1) One standard response, more or less Burkean, emphasizes the superiority of collective, accumulated wisdom over that of any single person or generation. This claim is debatable, of course, and it may not apply to the kind of argument that focuses not so much on an ongoing tradition as on the particular thinking of the founding generation. In this respect, Chris says his perplexity may reflect his Protestant skepticism of tradition. Maybe. But insofar as the sort of talk he is uncertain about isn't about "tradition" so much as about "the Founders" (and especially, of course, if the Founders are being cited in figuring out the meaning of the Constitution, as is often true), this sort of argument isn't really about tradition. It might be closer to a "sola scriptura" type of thinking that Protestants presumably would be comfortable with.
2. Or we might just think that the Founders, or their generation, happened to be unusually wise or prescient, so it would be prudent to give weight to their judgments. Reasons might be offered for thinking this. A variation is that their generation was part of, or at least closer to, a worldview that understood truths that a modern worldview has trouble grasping. So we might be interested in what they thought because for us this might be a sort of window into a world that we no longer have good access to.
3. Actually, though, I suspect that perhaps the major reason why we care so much about what the Founders thought is because they were in an important sense constitutive of the identity of our political community. On a personal level, any sane normative reflection will take into account the kind of person I am, or you are. "What should I do?" or "How should I live?" can't be sensibly addressed without some understanding of "Who or what sort of person am I?" The same seems true for a community. But what gives a community its character or identity? It's a large question, but surely a major part of the answer has to refer to the traditions of the community, and in particular to its origins or founding. I think we all basically understand this when we give normative weight to what the Founders thought.
Thoughts?
Free Exercise? Tragic Exercise!
Sightings 12/13/07
The Lord Taketh Away
-- Shawn F. Peters
[Shawn Francis Peters' latest book, When Prayer Fails: Faith Healing, Children, and the Law, was published this month by Oxford University Press. He teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.]
[Shawn Francis Peters' latest book, When Prayer Fails: Faith Healing, Children, and the Law, was published this month by Oxford University Press. He teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.]
In 1980, a four-year-old Indiana girl named Natali Joy Mudd fell victim to
a fast-growing, highly malignant tumor called rhabdomyosarcoma. Even after the
growth sprouted from near the girl's right eye and "eventually grew to the size
of her head," as one press account later put it, Natali's parents did not to
take her to a doctor for medical treatment. Instead, adhering to the tenets of
their church, the Faith Assembly, they chose to treat her malady with prayer
alone – unsuccessfully, as it turned out. After Natali died and her parents
called the police to report her passing, investigators discovered trails of
blood along the walls of the Mudd home. They surmised that the crimson stains
had been left where the nearly blind Natali, groping her way through the house,
had dragged her grotesquely disfigured head.
Harrowing incidents of religion-based medical neglect – in which devout parents like the Mudds, following the doctrines of their faiths, refuse to furnish conventional medical care to their ailing children – are not unique to a single church or a particular geographical area. Since the late nineteenth century, this phenomenon has imperiled the youngest and most vulnerable members of a variety of religious faiths in every region of the United States. From Massachusetts to California, hundreds of children have died as Natali Joy Mudd did – in agony, and aided by little more than the ardent bedside prayers of their parents and fellow church members.
It is difficult to determine precisely how many children have lost their lives in such tragic circumstances. But even the limited evidence that has been compiled on religion-based medical neglect of children is unsettling. A wide-ranging 1995 study funded by the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect investigated whether lesser-known forms of religion-related child abuse, such as the faith-based medical neglect that proved so deadly in the case of Natali Joy Mudd, posed a greater risk to children than other, more widely publicized threats, such as ritual satanic abuse. By surveying thousands of psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers, the study's authors identified dozens of instances in which parents had withheld medical care from their children for religious reasons. The prevalence of such cases led the authors of the study to conclude that "there are more children actually being abused in the name of God than in the name of Satan."
Many such cases of abuse have resulted in criminal prosecutions of parents under manslaughter and neglect statutes. The defendants in these cases typically have claimed that the First Amendment safeguards their decision to adhere to their faiths' religious traditions and treat their ailing children solely by spiritual means, as they believe the scriptures mandate. They also claim that they possess a fundamental right as parents to direct the upbringing of their children without interference from the state. Prosecutors, however, generally have balked at the notion that constitutional protections for religious liberty provide an absolute bar to state regulation of religious conduct, particularly when that behavior puts the safety of children at risk. They also have disputed the claim that the state has no right to limit the authority of parents to direct the upbringing of their children.
Many parents who spurn medicine for prayer would agree with the assessment of John Alexander Dowie, the great Chicago-area spiritual healer of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who argued that Christians should "forget about the law" as it relates to furnishing medical treatment to their children because they "are Christians first, citizens afterward." Dowie's comment cuts to the heart of the dilemma that still confronts devoutly religious parents who choose to treat their sick or injured children with prayer rather than medicine. Not only must they endeavor to safeguard the flagging health of their sons and daughters; they also must try to reconcile their devotion to God with their duties as citizens in a society that, while ostensibly honoring the principles of tolerance articulated in the First Amendment, boasts a long and sometimes checkered history of regulating the religious conduct of adherents to uncommon faiths. For spiritual healers, balancing those sacred and secular responsibilities – weighty obligations that often dramatically conflict with one another – remains no less vexing a task today than it was in Dowie's time.
Harrowing incidents of religion-based medical neglect – in which devout parents like the Mudds, following the doctrines of their faiths, refuse to furnish conventional medical care to their ailing children – are not unique to a single church or a particular geographical area. Since the late nineteenth century, this phenomenon has imperiled the youngest and most vulnerable members of a variety of religious faiths in every region of the United States. From Massachusetts to California, hundreds of children have died as Natali Joy Mudd did – in agony, and aided by little more than the ardent bedside prayers of their parents and fellow church members.
It is difficult to determine precisely how many children have lost their lives in such tragic circumstances. But even the limited evidence that has been compiled on religion-based medical neglect of children is unsettling. A wide-ranging 1995 study funded by the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect investigated whether lesser-known forms of religion-related child abuse, such as the faith-based medical neglect that proved so deadly in the case of Natali Joy Mudd, posed a greater risk to children than other, more widely publicized threats, such as ritual satanic abuse. By surveying thousands of psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers, the study's authors identified dozens of instances in which parents had withheld medical care from their children for religious reasons. The prevalence of such cases led the authors of the study to conclude that "there are more children actually being abused in the name of God than in the name of Satan."
Many such cases of abuse have resulted in criminal prosecutions of parents under manslaughter and neglect statutes. The defendants in these cases typically have claimed that the First Amendment safeguards their decision to adhere to their faiths' religious traditions and treat their ailing children solely by spiritual means, as they believe the scriptures mandate. They also claim that they possess a fundamental right as parents to direct the upbringing of their children without interference from the state. Prosecutors, however, generally have balked at the notion that constitutional protections for religious liberty provide an absolute bar to state regulation of religious conduct, particularly when that behavior puts the safety of children at risk. They also have disputed the claim that the state has no right to limit the authority of parents to direct the upbringing of their children.
Many parents who spurn medicine for prayer would agree with the assessment of John Alexander Dowie, the great Chicago-area spiritual healer of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who argued that Christians should "forget about the law" as it relates to furnishing medical treatment to their children because they "are Christians first, citizens afterward." Dowie's comment cuts to the heart of the dilemma that still confronts devoutly religious parents who choose to treat their sick or injured children with prayer rather than medicine. Not only must they endeavor to safeguard the flagging health of their sons and daughters; they also must try to reconcile their devotion to God with their duties as citizens in a society that, while ostensibly honoring the principles of tolerance articulated in the First Amendment, boasts a long and sometimes checkered history of regulating the religious conduct of adherents to uncommon faiths. For spiritual healers, balancing those sacred and secular responsibilities – weighty obligations that often dramatically conflict with one another – remains no less vexing a task today than it was in Dowie's time.
----------
Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.
"Separation Anxieties: Church & State"
This past weekend, I was a panelist -- along with Judge McConnell, Prof. Chris Eisgruber, and Holly Hollman of the Baptist Joint Committee -- on an episode of "Dan Rather Reports." The show (filmed in a Hogwarts-y room on Princeton's campus) was called "Separation Anxiety: Church and State." If you are interested, here's the link.
The Church and Birth Control, Revisited
The Tablet
The International Cathoilic Weekly
December 1, 2007
Bishop wants ban on birth control lifted
Christa Pongratz-Lippitt
A popular bishop has called for an end to the Church's ban on married priests and the use of birth control, arguing that a backlog of necessary reforms is draining the Church of its strength and preventing it from asserting its presence in today's world.
In his new book, A Church with a Future: 12 essays on seemingly insoluble church problems, Bishop Helmut Krätzl, an auxiliary in Vienna, accuses the Church of having shied away from sensitive issues such as mandatory celibacy, because it considers such problems insoluble and was waiting for "God to intervene".
He cites surveys that show celibacy to be a key reason for the drastic fall in vocations to the priesthood and says he is convinced that the policy is out of step with reality, would weaken the Church, and prevent its urgently needed message from reaching the world. The bishop advocates the model of the Greek Catholic Church, which is in full communion with Rome and yet permits married men to become priests, but not bishops.
The bishop says that the issue of birth control has to be discussed openly and calls for "responsible parenthood" based on the informed conscience of the individual, which the Second Vatican Council confirmed as the final instance for moral decisions. He says the fact that the Church forbids birth control but that so many Catholics practise it has lost the Church much credibility.
Bishop Krätzl also says it is imperative to go back to the declarations of the Second Vatican Council and study not only what they said but how they came about, because they pointed the way forward on church reform. The question of centralism versus collegiality must be brought back on to the discussion table, he argues.
Bishop Krätzl also tackles the subject of remarried divorcees in Austria, where many have either left the Church or feel neglected by it, because they may not receive the sacraments or be godparents or confirmation sponsors, and are often barred from parish councils. Acknowledging that divorce is on the increase, Krätzl notes a solution practised in the Orthodox Church, where a second church marriage is possible and divorcees are not barred from the sacraments, and says something similar should be considered.
Here, as elsewhere in the book, he quotes Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, who as Archbishop of Munich in 1980 wrote to all his priests and deacons advocating "greater compassion" for remarried divorcees in line with the Orthodox Churches. The bishop also called for steps to be taken towards intercommunion with the other Churches.
Climate Change and the Poor
One thing I did not see reflected in the recent back and forth between Rick and Eduardo about climate change is any mention of the concern expressed in a recent UN Human Development Report about the disproporationate impact of climate change on the poor. Although climate change will affect everyone, the poor will “face the immediate and most severe human costs” in the form of malnutrition, water scarcity and loss of livelihood. As discussed in an article in this morning's NYT, it does appear that the climate change talks currently under way in Bali are focusing some attention on this issue.
The Church and Human Sexuality, Revisited
THE TABLET
THE INTERNATIONAL CATHOLIC WEEKLY
Founded in 1840
December 1, 2007
Editorial
An important distinction must be made about the
content of Catholic teaching and the language used
to present that teaching to a wider public. Words
like “evil” in connection with homosexuality, and
“murder” in connection with abortion, may resonate sweetly
with some of the faithful but will be heard as strident discords
by everyone else. By using such language the Church
brands itself as harsh and unworthy of serious attention.
In so far as Sir Stephen Wall’s criticism of recent church
statements (see page 12) is a criticism of this sort of inflexible
tone, it is timely. The message “watch your language”
is one that needs to be widely heard, not least in the Vatican.
Indeed, Cardinal Walter Kasper, head of the Christian
Unity department at the Vatican, has just publicly attacked
the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for the insensitive
language it used in its “One True Church” statement
in July this year. This “aroused perplexity and created
discontent” among non-Catholic Churches, with whom he
is, on behalf of the Vatican, trying to improve relations. If
he felt sabotaged, that would be entirely understandable.
Sir Stephen, a senior aide to the former prime minister
who gave up his government job to work for a time as adviser
to Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, goes further
than that. He is concerned with content, not just with presentation.
In his article here he argues that the cardinal’s recent
pronouncement stating the Church’s case against the
legal approval of all-female (in effect, lesbian) parentage via
IVF was giving “pre-eminence to its concept of law and disregarding
its duty of love”. This is partly a challenge to the
traditional Catholic teaching that homosexual acts are invariably
seriously sinful. There will be many Catholics who
would go at least some way towards his position on that. But
the cardinal’s essential point was that children need parents
of either sex, and that the proposed legislation ignored that
powerful consideration – as does Sir Stephen. Nor does he
sufficiently acknowledge that his former eminent employer
moved a long way from the language of law to the language
of love in his recent joint statement (with Cardinal
Keith O’Brien of Edinburgh and St Andrews) on abortion.
As to the substance of the teaching, a new and more satisfactory
sexual ethic is unlikely to emerge simply from reversing
the old one. Church leaders must find the courage
to reopen a debate that should range over issues from contraception
to homosexuality – including lesbianism, on which
it appears to have no coherent view at all. Instead, in what
looks with hindsight almost like an attempt to justify the
extreme caricature of the Magisterium in the work of novelist
Philip Pullman – including the controversial new film
The Golden Compass – the Vatican has repeatedly and unjustly
silenced any theologian who tried to begin such a debate.
Sir Stephen’s rebuke that “as a Church beset by scandal
has become less authoritative, so it has become disproportionately
more authoritarian” is well said in this context. Authoritarians
do not listen. The witness of Catholic married
couples of all sorts, as well as Catholic homosexuals of either
sex, needs to be heard. Until the Church’s leaders really understand
what they have to say, they must expect impatient
and frustrated outbursts from even its most loyal members.
[Too read the article, by Steven Wall, to which the editorial refers, click here. These are the final paragraphs of the article:]
Above all, the Church's approach should be rooted not in power, authority and threat, but in love and understanding and, dare I say it, in acknowledging that it can be wrong or that many of life's most poignant problems raise issues of right and wrong, love and duty, pain and suffering that are not susceptible to simple answers.
The Church portrays itself as the victim of an aggressive secularism. It looks to me, rather, as if the Church is itself in danger of adopting an aggressive fundamentalism and that the secular societies it excoriates demonstrate a tolerance that is often closer to the ideal of Christian charity.
As a lifelong Catholic, I continue to be inspired by the many excellent Catholic men and women, lay and ordained, who live the spirit of the Gospels. I find hope and communion in the celebration of Mass and I believe in striving for reform from within. It is in that spirit that I hope that the window of fresh air that was Vatican II can be prised open once again.
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